Fact Sheet
Overview
In 1991, Microsoft
Corp. became one of the first software companies to create its own
computer science research organization. As part of a dynamic industry that is constantly reinventing itself, Microsoft saw the need to suppo
rt long-term computer science research -- research that is not bound
by product cycles -- so there would be new foundations and technology
breakthroughs for future generations to build upon. Today, with its
growing staff of world-renowned scientists, Microsoft® Research
is one of the world's largest, fastest-growing and most highly
respected software research organizations -- and one that will help
define and redefine the computing experience for millions of people
for decades to come.
The
Goals of Microsoft Research
"We're building the technology that will enable PCs to see, listen,
speak and learn so that people can interact with their computers as
naturally as they interact with other people." -- Bill Gates
For over a decade, Bill Gates has openly shared his vision for the
future of computing. He has predicted a future in which computers
will see, listen, speak and learn, and people will be able to access
information and resources securely throughout the home, office,
enterprise and world. He accurately predicted that computing would be
available and accessible in handheld devices and home appliances as
well as in traditional desktop and server environments. Gates' vision
is reflected in Microsoft's goals to help usher in a new era of
personal, business and intellectual communication and to help ensure
that tomorrow's computers will be vastly easier to use, always
available and more powerful than those of today.
While the industry has made amazing progress over the past few
years, still many underlying challenges and problems need to be
solved before technology is as ubiquitous and as seamless as Gates'
vision. Microsoft Research is dedicated to solving these problems by
doing the following:
- Always looking five to 10 years beyond the current product
development cycles to identify and invent key technologies that will
impact users in the future
- Working closely with product development to share short-term
results and incorporate those results into Microsoft products
- Continuing to contribute and collaborate with the entire
research community in an effort to expand the circle of
knowledge
Today, research projects range from artificial intelligence and
inventing new ways for people to interact with computers to improving
programming languages and optimizing software tools so developers can
work more efficiently. Regardless of what end of the spectrum they
inhabit, all projects within Microsoft Research are aimed at
simplifying and enhancing the way people interact with technology.
Breakthroughs, Large and Small
While some people believe that being innovative or making a
breakthrough means "getting there first," Microsoft takes a much
broader view. Being the first to do something is certainly one
definition, but in technology, a "breakthrough" or innovation can
take years to evolve. In fact, in many cases, like Internet
technology or even electronic mail, the impact is only realized after
reaching critical mass. Microsoft believes it is a combination of
invention and popularization that makes a technology or product
innovative. Because of this, it is imperative that today's
researchers are given the freedom to devote time and energy to
advancing computer science and inventing new technologies over the
long term. Groundbreaking technologies of today are built on the
fundamental science of decades past.
However, even though most of Microsoft's researchers are focused
on long-term goals extending far beyond the current product cycles,
their close interactions with the rest of Microsoft allow them to
share short-term results with the product development groups. In
fact, many major Microsoft products on the market today -- from
CD-ROM game titles to enterprisewide system software -- use
technology or tools created by Microsoft Research. In several cases,
researchers have even followed their ideas to product development.
It's this sort of informal atmosphere and free-flow exchange of ideas
that encourages the continual "technology transfer" between research
and development.
Building a "Global Think Tank"
Currently, Microsoft Research has over 450 employees working across
more than 30 disciplines. Microsoft Research realized early on the
importance of expanding the organization beyond the United States to
tap into the world's pre-eminent computer science talent and is also
committed to growing the organization to 600 by 2000. Today, with
labs in Beijing and Cambridge, England, in addition to the original
headquarters in Redmond, Wash., and a small center in San Francisco,
Microsoft Research is building a dynamic organization and attracting
some of the world's finest computer scientists.
Microsoft researchers include renowned industry figures whose
talents are recognized with prestigious national and international
honors. Some of those honors include the National Medal of
Technology, the Turing Award of the Association for Computing
Machinery and the Fields Medal of the International Mathematical
Union (both of which are considered the "Nobel Prizes" of those
disciplines). A few Microsoft researchers are also members of the
National Academy of Engineering and several have been honored by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award ("Oscar") for
Technical Achievement.
The quality of the research work is evidenced by Microsoft
Research's significant presence at many leading research conferences
and in technical journals where submissions are only accepted after
strict peer review. This continual interaction and professional
service to the research community is a vital part of the lab. In
fact, researchers at Microsoft maintain close ties with the research
community and their peers worldwide. These interactions include
active participation in collaborative research projects with
university faculty, the mentoring of graduate students and teaching
university courses, as well as providing service to research
organizations and other scientific bodies. Microsoft Research also
sponsors a graduate fellowship program, summer internship program,
postdoctoral studies and faculty sabbaticals.
Microsoft Research encourages the open sharing of ideas with the
rest of the research community to help ensure the highest quality
research. While it is true that some great ideas may be "lost" to
outside companies or universities in this collaborative process, it
is also true that great ideas do not happen in a vacuum and peer
review is an important element in measuring success. For this reason,
Microsoft places a high value on researchers interacting with and
contributing to the community as a whole.
A Brief
Look at Microsoft Research
Currently, Microsoft Research projects can be categorized into four
major areas. For more information on these areas, please visit http://research.microsoft.com.
Interactivity and Intelligence
For the most part, human communication today centers around spoken
and written language. Our interactions with technology could be much
more natural if they were based on human language and nonverbal
communication and not limited to the technical language of a PC or
handheld device. By researching areas like speech recognition, vision
technology, computer graphics and user interfaces, researchers at
Microsoft are identifying ways to improve human interaction with
computers. The goal of this research is to enable computers to better
understand the user by inventing underlying technology that allows
the computer to more accurately interpret its surroundings. This
could be considered the "artificial intelligence" division of
Microsoft Research.
Programming Tools and Techniques
As software continues to grow in size and complexity, issues of
performance, quality, maintainability and productivity become more
critical. If developers can create better-quality software
applications more quickly and easily, they can bring their products
to market faster and price them lower, which benefits users.
Microsoft Research is inventing new programming tools, methodologies
and techniques to help developers meet this challenge. Established in
March 1999, the Programmer Productivity Research Center is a separate
but related MSR effort to assist programmers. With the goal of
eventually providing resources to the external developer community,
the center works with researchers from both academia and industry to
investigate radical programming approaches and then test them in
Microsoft's real-world software development environment.
Systems and Architecture
Microsoft Research wants to extend the capabilities of computing
systems in a variety of ways. Currently, scientists are researching
ways to design operating systems, architectures and components that
take advantage of powerful hardware, storage devices and networks
available today as well as those of the future. This involves
research on higher performance databases,
scalable systems based on clusters of machines, distributed systems
that can configure and fine-tune themselves, and networks that
provide location-independence for users and resources.
Mathematical Sciences
In the mathematical arena, Microsoft Research brings together a range
of disciplines -- from computer science theory to cryptography and
signal processing -- to address fundamental issues related to its
ability to solve difficult computational problems securely and
efficiently.
Research Beyond Redmond
While most of Microsoft Research is located at the company's Redmond
headquarters, Microsoft Research also maintains facilities in
Cambridge, San Francisco and Beijing.
- Microsoft Research Ltd. Research at the facility in
Cambridge is in the areas of programming languages, security,
information retrieval, operating systems and networking. Established
in June 1997, the lab has grown quickly to more than 40 researchers.
- Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center (BARC). Established
in 1995, BARC researchers work primarily on issues that involve
scalable servers and the future of virtual communication
("telepresence").
- Microsoft Research, China. Founded in 1998, this is
Microsoft's newest research center and it is expanding rapidly. As
with the other labs, the talents of researchers based there will
largely determine the research focus of the Beijing lab. Currently,
nearly 50 researchers are developing next-generation multimedia
applications and Asia-specific computing technologies such as adapted
user interfaces and language conversion systems.